Tablet and Mobile

Archive for the ‘mobile’ Category

We’re now looking at nearly 2 years since the launch of the original iPad and though the device retains some of the magic, those of us there at the beginning are no longer in awe of the fantastic design that has made so many millions for Apple and changed the way we work and play.

It now seems fairly natural to be walking around with a slim glass-and-aluminium device that’s more powerful than mainstream PCs of just a few years ago – so the only questions is – WHICH tablet should we be carrying?

I recently got my hands on a 7” Android tablet running “Gingerbread” – or Android 2.3.  Since then we’ve seen “Honeycomb” and finally “Ice Cream Sandwich” but most of the cheaper tablets are running 2.3 or lower.

To be honest I would not waste my time with anything LESS than version 2.3 is it’s fore-runners were never designed for tablet use.

Until now I’ve avoided Android tablets altogether for a number of reasons including the absolutely useless “resistive” displays that many of the cheaper ones employ. These are of the old-fashioned variety you have to press on to get any response and they are deeply unsatisfying to use. One of the iPad’s best features is the utterly responsive “capacitive” display which requires no finger pressure AT ALL to work – and so that for me is the minimum I’m prepared to look at.

The Yuandao N12 Fast Tab is one of dozens of 7” tablets out there that runs Android 2.3 and on the surface of it, it’s a mini-iPad..  the 7” format means it fits comfortably into a big hand and you’d expect that to be a big plus compared to the iPad’s rather larger format. In fact there is little apparent difference in weight.

So, in 2012 how to Android and Apple stack up?

The N12 is CHEAP – I’ve seen it at £100 including VAT in the UK so it’s not in the same league as iPad price-wise or feature-wise.

Let’s look at the pluses and minuses of this particular tablet – which is not untypical of the far-eastern offerings available right now..

Minus

• Battery life –claimed to be 20 hours standby and 5 hours video – yes, if you are lucky, more like it 4 hours of use. The iPad has never run out on standby in the time I’ve had it and gets around 10 hours of video NO PROBLEM.
• Microsoft Exchange – The M12 cannot handle any but the simplest of Exchange setups – if the setup won’t work with email and password, there seems to be no way to get into manual setup – this is a MAJOR omission for corporate use.
• Display – fast and responsive but ultimately at 800*480 pixels it’s an overgrown phone and the pixilation is obvious, even watching movies.
• WIFI – the WIFI is very insensitive, picking up less signal than many phones and dropping out occasionally.
• Limited memory – a common Android problem, although the unit has 8GB internally with access to an external memory stick, it seems that even though you can move Apps into this larger space, there is an internal CORE of 512MB RAM (this is a common limit – see specs – APPLE do NOT have such a limit) and even Apps in external memory use up SOME of this 512MB RAM which soon gets eaten up – putting a limit on how many Apps you can install – this is really unacceptable but somehow manages to escape most reviews.
• Speed – not quite fast enough to make good use of Flash – one of the so-called Apple-killer features, the Flash performance is poor.
• Finish – the unit has a nice Aluminium finish which unfortunately has sharp edges – after repeated handling while, say, watching a movie, tends to get annoying. This sharp edging appears to be common among the Chinese offerings
• Reliability – the hardware seems reliable enough but Gingerbread is chocker full of bugs – the language control means that some menu items come up in Chinese no matter what you do and installations can easily be messed up.
• The Android market has some gaping holes compared to Apple, the latter having an excellent PDF reader (GoodReader) and several other business tools missing from Android market.
• Front-only camera which is poor quality and not that reliable – only sometimes works with Skype. No back camera.
• No Bluetooth – yes you heard it  – no Bluetooth (the iPhone 4 and iPad2 reliably handle 2 simultaneous Bluetooth connections – in my car for example the phone is Bluetooth hands-free but also talks to a separate Bluetooth unit to play audio through the car stereo – something the old 3GS could not quite tackle)
• No sign of upgrades available – website is in Chinese, very little English discussion on the web.
• Large border area around the screen.
• 16:9 wide format

Plus

• The 7” format would fit into a large coat pocket and just feels nice
• The screen is bright and responsive
• The Android market has come a long way and although still full of rubbish, there are some hidden gems in there – many of which are free.
• External memory means no limit to movies you can store on the device.
• USB means external keyboard is easy to implement (though Bluetooth would be more convenient)

Summary

Based on the above – for me the ideal would be a 7” tablet with little border area i.e. mostly screen, running a later version of Android which properly handled Microsoft Exchange, on a tablet with at least 1024 pixels wide, rounded corners, 6-10 hour battery life, Bluetooth, sensitive WIFI, at least 1Gb internal working RAM, preferably more.

With current improvements to the Android Market, there is definitely a place for these devices. If you look at the likes of the Samsung S2 phone – slim, incredibly light, super display – think of one of those stretched to 7” or so and I reckon there is definitely a place for such a device provided the price is right (i.e. WELL under the cost of an iPad) – as yet it does not seem to exist, the NOTE being the nearest but still too small.

For now, the iPad is still streets ahead of Android…maybe they’ll keep that lead, maybe not. There is something quite nice about the smaller form factor and lower cost of the Android devices – opens up all kinds of possibilities if only the quality bar was raised…

Unlike previous models, iPhone 4 has a reasonable camera on it – and iPhone 4s even better. Yet time and time again I see people churning our terrible photos and videos using these devices.

The following are just a few tips to ensure you get the best from your iPhone.

Firstly – the deal-breakers:

Lighting – if you know the lighting will be poor, forget it. The iPhones are awful at handling low light, often resulting in blurring and grainy images.

Sound – ever stood in a church or large school hall – that kind of hollow sound (which is related to echo but faster) – the internal microphone in the iPhone suffers from such effects at just a few feet from the mic (like most phones). Get a plug-in external mic – preferably with a long lead. Maplins do a great lapel-mic (though I had to change the plug to make it fit the iPhone  – I’m sure an adaptor is available).

Tripod – no matter how hard you try, holding iPhone by hand is not going to work well – you can remove shake in software but it doesn’t hold a candle to starting off with the phone mounted on a rock-solid surface such as a decent tripod. Look up eBay for suitable clamps. There’s a tripod here but I would not recommend sticking the zoom lens on – pictures look awful..

Dirt and Grease – the big let-down here is the lens – the slightest bit of grease, finger-print, dirt on the lens will ruin the quality because of its tiny size. Don’t even consider taking a video or pictures unless the lens is spotlessly cleaned with a soft, dry cloth (commonly known as an unused handkerchief).

Duration – you should always use the best quality settings to get high quality you need lots of memory – stick with videos segments of a few minutes each if possible or you’re going to spend all day getting the material onto your PC.

Here then is how I have managed to produce half-decent quality video, given decent lighting. I use an iPhone 4.

I purchased a tie-clip microphone from Maplins for under £20 – and this plugs into the iPhone (effectively preventing the speaker working while it is plugged in). The lead is 3 metres long, suitable for interviews. I had to change the plug for the iPhone).

The App I use is called Filmic Pro and It will take video at the highest quality (1280px * 720px, 24 frames/second) at 16:9 format – this ensures a quite reasonable image with no unpredictable changes occurring. Automatic sound level control is turned off.

The image below shows the controls – the one below that shows what they are for. Essentially you make sure the brilliance and focus are right, start the recording, set all 3 controls to ON… and start your video.

And below, the help screen.

The controls are easy – “focus lock” will stop the focus changing if someone walks past the camera. Modern low-cost autofocus systems work the wrong way – if they are just out of focus they go WAY out of focus – then work their way back toward sharp focus. “Exposure lock” stops the camera dimming if light levels change which they do all the time in any moving scene. “White balance” takes a little more thought – the camera wants to compensate for too much of any one colour – to get professional results you have to make sure the imagery looks right at the start – then use the control to LEAVE It that way.

Essentially you then make your recording – then using the normal iPhone lead to your PC, offload the file to the PC – doing this wirelessly might not be a good idea when the file is large. Incidentally the iPhone is probably not your best choice for long meetings or interviews – you will run out of memory – don’t be tempted to chose a lower quality setting. In a test I took a 2 minute video and the file was over 200MB long. So this approach is best for short interviews of a few minutes – or multiple scenes take at different locations.

The App is set to record at the highest setting, 24fps, 16:9 format.. and it outputs MOV files which you can then import into an editor.

Some more setting screenshots..

That’s it, if you want more information, let me know.

I can’t tell you how many photos I’ve seen taken on mobile phones that are WAY below their potential – purely and simply because people are not thinking. CLEAN THE LENS. Mobile phone camera lenses are TINY – the working area is extremely small – and so it doesn’t take much of a smudge or spec of dirt to ruin the image – especially in high-contrast shots. If your pictures look “hazy” there’s a good chance there’s a fingerprint or a load of dust in the back of the phone where the lens is.

Clean the lens before you take any photo. This simple, even trivial trick could dramatically improve your mobile photos.

Other tricks:

Another failing with mobile phones is bad lighting – they just are not that sensitive partly because of the lens size – small lens – not much light – it’s not rocket science. Get the best light you can for your photo. The lower the light level, the more grain and blurring you’ll see – it’s that simple.  It takes a very expensive camera to match our eyes for light sensitivity.

Avoid pointing into sunlight – the glare is likely to make even the slightest mark on the lens result  in bad pictures – and the cameras generally can’t handle the wide range of light levels anyway.

Enjoy taking your photos.

 

I thought I’d take a diversion from talking about iPhones and iPads here as nothing that exciting is happening at the moment and talk about QR codes, a really handy way to give people information on a mobile phone from a website or printed publication.

Firstly, what are QR codes?  A kind of Barcode? Checkout the QR code on the right here, it’s a link to my website. The idea is you point your mobile phone at the image and are taken straight to the website.

To quote Wikipedia, that well-known source of all truth… “A QR code (abbreviation for Quick Response code) is a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) that is readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera telephones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded may be text, URL, or other data.”

Put simply, stick one of these on your fizzy pop can and kids who can’t type will easily access your website or whatever else you want them to look at. The limits of these codes seem to be around 4000 characters – which gives you a lot to play with. Try the link to the Wikipedia site reference on the left.

So firstly, how do we READ QR codes?

ON the iPhone, “SCAN” is in my experience the fastest, easiest, no-frills QR code reader – it’s free and it works. On the iPhone 4 it’s just about instant. If you have one of these devices there is NO reason NOT to have this app! Just go to the App store on your phone and look for “scan” without the quotes.. their icon is shown above on the left. It’s free and no catches that I can see.  Indeed even the demo image on the App store (seen on the right here) takes you to a valid site instantly with more information on QR codes. The Android phones will have their own scanners and success will vary depending on the software and the camera on the Android phone.

How do we GENERATE QR codes?

That’s just as easy. To have a play I recommend you go to this website… http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ – it really doesn’t get any easier.

The more technical among you might be thinking – well that’s fine but I want to generate these on my own website….well… here’s the thing. Google have an API for this.

http://createqrcode.appspot.com/

Put in your information, hit “Create QR code” and Bob’s your uncle..  try this for example..

 

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=300×300&chl=http%3A//www.fsb.org.uk&chld=H|0

What is REALLY good about this is that you can use this as the basis of generating images on your website or elsewhere in custom ways.

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=300×300&chl=http%3A//www.fsb.org.uk&chld=H|0

The colouring above should help you see what is fixed and what you need to change for your requirements. The %3A is necessary to use in place of colons in addresses, the rest should be obvious – size of the graphic and the address you want to link to…

A project called the ZXing project allows you to create a QR code easily with your contact information which, when scanned (for example by the excellent SCAN App) will create a new telephone contact for you. Check that out here.

The QR code on the right is an example – scan it and you should see a new contact open up with my details including phone, address and notes. The same site has other options such as calendar events but at least on my iPhone, they do not actually create calendar events as yet. As soon as they do I can see a whole host of applications arising. The best code readers can handle type 40 code readers – which can handle over 4,000 characters (and get quite large) – less powerful readers may only be able to handle earlier versions. Read all about this at the Google Chart API site.

If you want to give people-on-the-move easy access to your website or other information – there it is…QR codes. Cheap, cheerful, easy and as far as I can tell, reliable.